by James Comins
“You do?” The tin princess hugged the shepherd’s son. “We found my mom!” She turned to the empress. “So where is she?”
“Not. So. Fast. Your. Mom. Is. Involved. In. A. Secret. Project. For. The. Mechanical. Empire.”
“Whaddya mean?” the princess demanded. “She’s helping you build your death cannon?”
“Rats. I. Hoped. You. Wouldn’t. Guess.”
“What? My mom is really helping you kill all the fire people?” the princess said, shocked.
“I don’t believe you,” said the shepherd’s son, taking a step forward. “I think you’re lying.”
The tin princess nodded firmly.
“No. Really. It’s. True. Only,” and the empress’ voice dropped to a whisper, “She. Doesn’t. Know. It.” The empress’ metal face broke into a grin. “We. Told. Her. It. Was. For. Cooling. Things. Off.” She laughed electronically. It was a rotten, angry laugh. “Which. It. Is. It’ll. Cool. Off. Their. Charcoal. Hearts. Just. Fine.”
The attendant gulped.
“See?” whispered the stone shepherd’s son. “That sort of thing is totally lying.”
“Hmf,” said the princess.
“I’ll. Let. Her. Go. When. I’ve. Destroyed. The. Fire. King’s. Kingdom.” The mechanical empress laughed her horrible laugh again.
“No!” The tin princess started to storm out of the room, but the stone shepherd’s son grabbed her arm.
“Wait. Your Empress, why are you and the fire king fighting?” he asked.
The imperial empress frowned and paced back and forth.
“That’s. Not. Your. Beeswax.”
“You tricked my mom into helping you do something awful! It’s totally our business,” said the princess.
The empress glared at a pile of robot parts for awhile.
“C’mon!” said the tin princess.
“I. Asked. The. Fire. King. Out. On. A. Date.” She spidered around nervously. “I. Outrank. Him. He’s. Available. And. He. Should. Feel. Honored. Totally. Honored. That. I. Would. Ignore. The. Rules. And. Ask. Him.”
“And he said no?” The tin princess was completely shocked. “You have got to be kidding.” She stared at the shepherd’s son meaningfully. “Can you believe that jerk? Saying no to an empress?” The shepherd’s son just looked puzzled.
“See,” said the empress, “It’s. Nice. To. Find. Someone. Who’s. On. My. Wavelength.” She buzzed.
“Yeah!” said the princess. She frowned. “But that doesn’t mean you can just kidnap people’s moms whenever you want.”
“Or kill an entire bunch of people,” added the shepherd’s son.
“Yeah,” said the princess. “Anyway, did the king say why he turned you down?”
The empress looked angry and hurt. “He. Said. I. Wasn’t. Tough. Enough. For. Him.”
“Just because you wouldn’t go into the lava?” said the shepherd’s son.
“My. Wires. Would. Melt.”
“Couldn’t you build fireproof spider legs?” the shepherd’s son asked.
The empress frowned. “I’m. Just. Fine. The. Way. I. Am.” She kicked over a bunch of modulator machines. “Nobody. Is. Going. To. Change. Me.”
“Yeah!” shouted the tin princess, pumping a fist in the air.
“So you’re just going to bully him because he won’t date you?”
“It. Isn’t. Bullying. I’m. Just. Pushing. Him. Around.” The empress glared. “I’m. The. Imperial. Empress. It’s. My. Job. To. Push. People. Around.”
“Does it make you happy, Your Empretty?”
“Pushing. People. Around?” She blipped, trying to calculate. “I. Just. Want. To. Date. A. Hot. Guy.” Steam whistled from the top of her head. “It’s. Lonely. At. The. Top.”
“Would you really wash away all the fire people?” asked the tin princess.
“If. I. Threaten. Him. Enough. Maybe. He’ll. Think. I’m. Tough.” The empress gasped. “Oh. No. Now. I’m. Talking. In. Rhyme.”
“If you don’t like rhymes, then he’s definitely not the right guy for you. He rhymes all the time. Ugh, you’ve got me doing it now,” said the princess. “You totally shouldn’t date him.”
“How. Dare. You. Tell. Me. Who. To. Date?” blared the grindy robot-voice.
“But he’s just not your type,” the princess said.
“Oh. Yeah?” The empress gritted her metal teeth. “Maybe. You. Can. Handle. A. Bath. But. We’ll. See. How. You. Handle. Being. Electrocuted!”
The empress grabbed a remote control with a pincer and began pushing buttons. A metal arm on wheels scooted out of the wall and zipped towards the two. Blue shocks crackled from the end of the arm.
The princess turned to the shepherd’s son. “I can handle a zap,” she whispered. “I’m a pretty good conductor. Are you?”
The shepherd’s son shook his head.
“Then run!”
Chapter Seventeen
They ran to the far side of the pool of water. The empress blocked off the exit, and the zap arm hummed toward them. They ran one way, then the other, but the zapping electrical arm was always waiting on the other side.
The empress laughed at them.
“Get to the elevator!” said the princess. They jumped onto the metal criscrosses of the elevator floor.
“Mr. Butler! Jump on the button, quick!” shouted the princess to the loudspeaker robot beside them.
“You’re. Not. Allowed. To. Do. That. ButlerBot,” bleebled the spidery empress.
“Eegads and begorrah! I can’t make decisions! Confusion! Confusion! It isn’t computing! Emergency blast off!” The butler machine wagged back and forth in anguish. “Prepare for emergency zoom! ThreeTwoOne!”
Rocket blasters shot the attendant straight through the ceiling. He kept going all the way out the top of the mountain.
“What’ll we do?” said the stone shepherd’s son as the sizzling blue arm went around the pool toward the elevator.
The tin princess jumped off the elevator and onto the up button. The cart began grumbling upwards and out of the reach of the zapper. The princess stayed behind.
“Why--” The shepherd’s son watched in horror through the elevator grating as he rose toward the upstairs.
“I told you,” the princess called up at him. “I can handle a zap. And a bully. Save my mom!”
There was nothing to do but watch through the elevator grating as he trundled to the top. But the cart didn’t stop at the second floor, or the third. It went all the way to the eleventh floor and clunked to a stop.
“Yes? Who is it?”
The stone shepherd’s son ran into the room. It was a mechanic’s garage, with old logos of robot companies nailed up on the walls and lots of oily rags and crank-lifts and wrenches lying around. Somebody was leaning over a big machine. Somebody shiny.
“You’re the silver queen!” he exclaimed.
And she was.
She gave the machine she was working on a good crank and set down her hex wrench.
“You’ll have to excuse my tarnish,” she told him. “I just finished my Cooling Cannon and--”
“No no no. Listen,” he said quickly. “It’s not a Cooling Cannon. It’s a weapon to destroy the Fire Kingdom. Your majesty, your daughter’s downstairs. We’re here to rescue you!”
“Rescue me from what? Her Imperiousness outranks both of us. You have to follow the rules. There have to be rules. Otherwise everyone would act crazy all the time.”
“But the empress didn’t follow the rules. She asked out the fire king!”
The silver queen eyed the shepherd’s son coldly and turned away.
“I don’t listen to gossip. Or gossipers,” she said.
“No, really, it’s true. I heard her say it herself,” the shepherd’s son said indignantly. How dare she call him a gossiper.
“If I believed everything people told me about what other people say, I’d believe a lot of stupid things. Instead of telling me about other people, tell me about yourself.”
The stone shepherd’s son pointed to the elevator cart. “Listen. Down there, right now, your daughter is getting zapped by the empress. We’ve got to rescue her.”
The silver queen smiled slyly. “Ohhh. You’re one of those rescuing-people boys. I’ll tell you a secret: if someone wants to be rescued, they’ll tell you.”
“But the golden king asked people to look for you. He didn’t know where you were. He even offered a Bodacious Bonanza!”
“I bet he did. Hey, since you aren’t telling me about yourself, I’ll tell you about myself.”
The stone shepherd’s son pointed helplessly to the elevator, then dropped his hand.
“Okay,” he said.
“Me and the king are getting divorced. We weren’t right for each other. I’m spending some time away from him. And I don’t need rescuing.”
“But the aluminum princess does! And there’s a war. And the water cannon--”
“Water cannon? Ha! That’s old technology. Obsolete. This is a modern design. Upgraded. It shoots chemicals. They’ll cool down wires and heat up fires. Both! What, did you think I was going to snuff out the neighboring kingdom?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what the empress said you were building.”
“You shouldn’t believe every rumor you hear. None of them are all the way true.”
“Right. Huh. So ... what now?” the shepherd’s son asked.
“I just finished the Cooling Cannon. I’ll go tell the mechanical empress, and then I’ll take you and my daughter back home.”
Chapter Eighteen
They stood in the elevator cart. The silver queen picked up a ping-pong ball and dropped it onto a wire ramp. The ball rolled its way down the ramp, knocking over a balanced washer tied to a wrapped string. As the string unwound, it turned a propeller, which blew air into a little jet engine, which turned a turbine, which powered a generator, which turned on a lightbulb, which powered a photovoltaic, which spun a motor, which wound up a different string, which pulled another washer over the elevator’s down button. The cart groaned and they were heading back down.
The shepherd’s son steamed. “What if you did need saving after all? What if you were trapped and you couldn’t tell anybody?”
“Do you really plan on running around after everybody just to see if they want some help?” the queen asked.
The stone shepherd’s son kept quiet.
By the time they had reached the second floor, they could hear the tin princess calling for help. As the cart descended into the top secret pool room, they saw the princess running away from a swarm of zapper arms, spinning saw blades and clutching claws, all of them on little wheels.
“Mom! Mom! Mom! She’s going to crumple me!”
The silver queen strode over and kicked the swarm of killer robots into the pool, where they all exploded.
“Your Imperilous Majester!” she said indignantly. “You know perfectly well that there are rules. You aren’t allowed to just crumple up everyone you meet. If you could, then everyone would act crazy all the time. And besides,” she added in a sharper tone of voice, “that’s my daughter!”
The imperial empress drew herself up on the tips of her eight legs. “How. Dare. You. Tell. Me. To. Follow. The. Rules!” she yelled. “I’m. The. Empress. I. Can. Invent. My. Own. Rules. And. You. Can’t. Tell. Me. Not. To!”
“You’re being a bad ruler,” scolded the silver queen. “If you don’t shape up and act properly, I’ll report you to the SuperEmperor. And we’ll see what he says about breaking the rules.”
“You. Wouldn’t.”
“I will.”
“Not. If. You. Can’t. Get. Out!” The spider empress scuttled out of the room and ordered the butler to close the door.
From outside, they heard him say, “But Your Imperiality! You can’t just leave guests in there.”
But she did.
Chapter Nineteen
“Why, that’s entirely against the rules. That’s grounds for not being empress anymore.” The silver queen slapped the high-security door. “Do you hear me? You’re not the empress anymore!”
“Terribly sorry,” yurbled the butler through the door.
“What’ll we do?” said the tin princess.
“I’ll--I’ll have my ex-husband file a report!” yelled her mom through the door.
The stone shepherd’s son took out the little clicking Bad Bird.
“You still have that thing? Wow. I would’ve thrown it away. Like, years ago.”
“Listen,” the shepherd’s son said to the Bad Bird. “I know you don’t have ears. But we need you to rescue us. Can you go get your friends and ask them for help?”
The princess rolled her eyes at him. “That’s not going to work, stoop. When you don’t have ears or a brain, you really actually don’t hear.”
The silver queen turned around. “Well, give it here. It’s a robot, so you have to speak robot language.”
The stone shepherd’s son handed her the robo-bird by the propeller. She opened up the back panel and pressed some buttons with a hairpin. “There we are. I programmed it to rescue us. Let’s see if it works.”
When she closed the back, the propeller spun, and the Bad Bird flew straight into a wall, sproing.
“Hmm. That’s a bug in the programming.” She picked the robot up, reattached the propeller, pried off the back cover and poked some more buttons. “There it is. Now I’ve set it to ‘rescue us and don’t crash into things.’ We’ll try again . . .” The Bad Bird flew out the hole in the mountain left by the blasted-off butler.
Twenty minutes later, they heard some shouting and whirring and beeping. The power door opened and a thousand bad birds rushed in, followed by one ferocious imperial spider. The attendant was dangling in the grip of three of the birds. “Best of luck, buddies!” he called as the cloud of robots picked up the princess and the queen and the stone shepherd’s son. They flew out the door and across the Mechanical Empire, up the cliff beside the Ferris wheel, and into the caves leading to the Fire Kingdom. At the hidden door the Bad Birds deposited the trio.
Chapter Twenty
The tin princess banged on the secret door of the crystal cave. “Okay, we’re here!” she shouted. “Hey you guys!”
The stone shepherd’s son thanked the Bad Birds, but they just flew away as if they hadn’t heard.
Firepete opened the door and peeked around the secret doorway. “Hey, it’s you.”
“Yup,” said the princess. “Get us outta here.”
“You got it. Check it out, Firesteve, they got her mom back, too. Did you smash the cannon?”
“Even better. It wasn’t even a water cannon,” said the shepherd’s son as he went through the crystal doorway. “Ask her.”
“That’s right,” said the silver queen, stepping through. “It’s a chemical cannon.”
“Aw, man. I love some good chemicals,” said Firesteve, closing the door behind them. “Nothing like a tall glass of chemicals to beat the cool.”
“So now there’s nothing to worry about,” said the tin princess.
“I’d like to meet your king,” said the silver queen. “I’ve heard a lot about him.”
“Mom, you’re not a good conductor. You’ll melt!”
“Maybe I will. But I’m not going to back down just because I might melt.”
“What’s this?” boomed a voice. “What’s that I heard her say? Whatever it was, it made my day. Skip the test!”
“What’s the fire king doing in the secret passageway?” the stone shepherd’s son asked the tin princess.
The fire king ambled around a corner. “Oh ho, I thought I’d stick around. I heard some gossip about your mother. Since you’re so tough, I knew you’d be back with her some time or nother.”
“Ohh la la, a rhymer,” said the queen breathily with her hands clasped. She frowned. “Even if he does listen to gossip.” Nervously, she sized up the king and crossed her arms. “Hmph. So?” she said.
“So wha
t?” said the fire king.
“Aren’t you going to ask me out?”
“Yes,” said the fire king.
Firepete and Firesteve steered the princess and the shepherd’s son out, letting the grownups talk to each other.
“Huh,” the tin princess said suspiciously. “I guess I’m going to have a new stepdad.”
“Probably.” The shepherd’s son sighed. “I found you and your mom, right? So I win a Bonanza. And, like, that’s what seeking your fortune’s all about. Right?”
“Whatsa matter?” She took his hand and looked him in the eye.
He sighed. “I miss the farm. Giving the stones their daily brushing. Carrying stone milk in pails. Shearing them. But if we went back there, you’d be bored. And besides, there’d be no one important there for you to talk to.”
“Hey! Who said anything about me going anywhere with you?” she demanded.
“Well, should I go with you? I’m going to teach you the violin, right?”
“Stone boy. You have to ask me out first.”
And he did.
About the Author
James Comins is a dinosaur because I say. He is a member of the ungrateful undead, enjoys saying freunlaven, and makes up most of these About the Author things. He has eyes in the back of his head. Literally.